Monday, January 31, 2011

Sunday, January 30, 2011

""THIS IS THE BEST BOOK EVER WRITTEN BY A HUMAN. I'm not kidding and I'm not exaggerating; there is no way to express the joy of reading Euclid without sounding like a lunatic. There are very few books which reach their umpteenth thousandth edition without promising a posthumous infinity of bliss. The bliss of 'The Elements' is admittedly finite, but it delivers right away. This is an electrifying piece of work which has produced a chorus of rapture and inspiration lasting two millennia.""wrote a reviewer on Amazon.

I passed my morning today re-reading (10th time?) the geometry-dedicated 6 first books of Euclid's Elements. I have the chance to read them in the original : greek never sounded so elegant and precise. I felt the same joy and enthusiasm as the reader cited above. This edition is the best translation in english and comprises all the 13 books in one volume.

What is the relation of this material with trading, you may ask. In my humble opinion, trading is pure geometry. It is the skill to think visually, in the two dimensions of a chart, as the chess player thinks in the 64 squares and 2 dimensions. Euclid's geometry is the best exercise i ever found for training your mind to think visually.

During my studies back in the 80's, I got a "passion" for some other geometries too. Among them, the now out-of-fashion projective geometry. Twenty years later, when I started reading trading books, I was really surpised to discover that all this stuff was the inspiration for the trading patterns of the first serious, pioneering book on Technical Analysis by Edwards and Magee, the famous Technical Analysis of Stock Trends, written in the 40's. Human knowledge transplanted on an other domain!..

To trade properly, you need just two things : geometry and table tennis. The first, explained above. Table tennis makes you fast. More on this on an other post!

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

I usually avoid (not always!) contra trades after a strong move. The gain on these is minimal compared to the risk taken. So is the first trade on the chart, just 1,5 pips and closed in extremis before the resume up, which gave more pips with some "straight" trades.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Monday, January 17, 2011

Eurogroup day today, with no news and no moves, flat markets. I was busy all day, I opened charts late in the afternoon. I insisted to trade inside the tight range. Big mistake. I got a big pain and risk, just to get a breakeven.

Friday, January 14, 2011

The unecessary first trade, while price was in the range, gave a loss. The gains came after this, in a natural way, when price moved out of the box. Scared exit (or stop hunting?) on third trade let the pips on the table. Not a big deal, the next wave gave more.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Sunday, January 2, 2011

When in bad mood, I have a remedy : I watch a film with my daughters. Today it was Ratatouille. A little mouse who becomes chef in a gourmet french restaurant! Astonishining direction and lighting, fantastic detail (professional cuisine, Paris), amazing caracters and a very touching story. The director, Brad Bird, has two more masterpieces on his credit : the most underrated marvel in animation, the Iron Giant (1999) and the incredible Incredibles (2004), created with Pixar.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Back from the holidays with a terrible cold and fever, only to be informed that I lost a good friend... I was thinking a lot of things in the last days and that putted me in the blues too... Exactly two years ago, I was writing in this blog one of my posts I like the most. Today, the crisis is a lot more actual and global. Where are we going, really?

Doing my little research about Tony Judt (previous post), I discovered a fine article of him, published here, which developes the same ideas, far more deeply and eloquently of course. Please, read it!.. (more about T.J. here).

"When i trade at home, I often watch the sparrows in my garden. When I feed them bread, they take just a little piece at a time and fly away.They keep on flying back and forth, taking small bits of bread. You will never be able to shoot a sparrow, it is just too fast. That is the way I day trade". M. Weinstein.

"Μηδείς αγεωμέτρητος εισίτω μοι την θύραν". Plato

"Toute lucidité est la conscience d'une perte". E. Cioran

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There is nothing to sell on this blog. No signals, no "systems" for sale. Just my trading plan and the recording of my trades on eur/usd and the fx euro future recently. And the books, the music, the films I like.

The Forexbird is a professional currency trader. He is also photographer and engineer, a maths and music addict and curious about everything.

Short entry on the rush this one, a very dangerous one. I didn't enter at the 70 level break, then i was running after the price. Entry...

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Trading foreign exchange on margin carries a high level of risk, and may not be suitable for all investors. The high degree of leverage can work against you as well as for you. Before deciding to trade foreign exchange you should carefully consider your investment objectives, level of experience, and risk appetite. The author is not liable for any loss or damage which may arise directly or indirectly from the content of this website.